In the Bleak Midwinter
by KhamanV
Summary: 'Tis the season! To celebrate, Coulson brings his team (and the mildly baffled Loki) together for one night's holiday party. Eat, drink, and reminisce for the days gone by and to think on hopes yet to come. One shot, posted complete, part of the Shield Codex but can be read without knowing what that is. Set during Season 2, no spoilers, features ugly holiday clothing.


(This takes place not long after the events still being written in _Rolling Thunder, _but can be read without knowing any other Codex works by me. Though you might wonder why Loki is slumming with SHIELD.)

In the Bleak Midwinter

. . .

Skye flapped snow off her fawn-colored wool coat as best as she could with only one hand available, ducking off Coulson's attempts to help her. "How do we have a safe house that looks like it fell out of a John Hughes movie? Did someone at S.H.I.E.L.D. back in the day wonder if we'd ever need to do a stakeout at Shermer High?"

"We've had Helicarriers, Skye. Invisible jets. We've slummed in bad hotels and hidden under dive bars. Is having a suburban two-level McMansion on standby really that out of character?"

She finished shrugging one arm out of her coat and pushed the crinkling paper bag towards Phil so she could get the other out. A little bell on her bright red holiday sweatshirt jingled from where it was attached to Santa's spangly puffy applique hat as she struggled. Five bucks at Goodwill, priceless kitsch. She loved it on sight. "Still weird. That's extra for the party. I know you said we were good, but I thought I'd be sure. Wanted to bring something, anyway. And we both know I can't cook."

Phil glanced inside at the two glass bottles. "Are you even old enough to be buying wine?"

"_Phil."_

"You old enough to drink it?"

She rolled her eyes at him with an _ugh _under her breath and stuck her coat on a peg, totally missing his hand and the coat closet he was trying to keep organized. "Antoine's not far behind, I know that much. Not sure about the rest of the team. Your other guest show up yet?"

Coulson plucked the coat off the peg, a hanger already in his other hand. "He's been here. Currently slumped in the parlor where I think he's losing a staring match with an Elf on a Shelf. Gonna go say hi?"

She scanned the little hallway and lobby just inside the front door with a lifted brow. "Or taunt him with a candy cane, since there's enough of them stuck on the walls. One of those."

. . .

The tall, slender figure in the bespoke black suit didn't budge as Skye approached. As advertised, he slumped comfortably in a lounge chair in the lee of the overbearing Christmas tree, one leg slung easily over the other. His unthreatening posture was at odds with the tension in his narrowed grey-green eyes, glowering at the low mantle above a crackling, well-stoked fire. There sat a tiny plush pixie-elf, replete with brightly rosy cheeks and a tall crimson hat. Both the toy and Loki's shiny black hair caught the twinkling reflection of the lights from the tree. She grinned. "Happy Holidays."

Loki twitched not a single muscle. "Coulson explained this bilious little monstrosity to me and I yet find it incomprehensible. You use it to torment and control children during your season of merriment, and its eyes appear to follow you around the room. Judging. Watching. Implied to rat them out to their elders ought they disobey the rules laid bare for them. This, by you, is _festive_?"

"Not by me, dude. I want to barf every time they advertise the TV special. It's pretty gross, but it's not exactly the worst thing to be ticked off about, either." She picked up a loud green pillow emblazoned with a glittery snowman and dropped onto a cushy footstool near him. He made a single concession to her presence, moving his slung leg away to give her more room.

"Dear Gods. They put this thing in action?"

She gave the cheerily ugly pillow a squeeze, clutching it tight in her arms. Squidgy. "It also makes like a gazillion bucks a year. I'll find you the address if you wanna burn up one of the warehouses. You'd probably get thank-you cards. Couldn't hurt your PR."

He stuck his elbow hard into the armrest, nestled his cheek atop his hand, and let out a slow sigh through his nostrils. The motion made his cufflinks catch the flickering firelight, tiny flashes of green and gold. "I'd bring marshmallows. Make an event of it. Maybe film a Vine." He fell into silence. It was something vaguely approximating comfortable, the fireplace giving the room a soothing, heavy warmth. A bowl of potpourri on the mantle near the condescendingly twee decoration filtered the soft scents of cinnamon and other spices into the air. All the scene needed was a Red Ryder BB gun and an animatronic Rudolph display. And who knew what lurked in other rooms as yet unseen? "What is worse?"

"For the season?" She glanced over at him. "Eh. Let's not get into it. It's depressing. We don't always get everything right as a species, much less as a country. And I kinda don't want to be depressed tonight. It's the one holiday we're getting, anyway."

"Yes, I didn't quite understand that, either. It's after your Thanksgiving, but not yet this birth of some little deity. I don't believe it's the one with the candles, either."

"Yeah, well, what with things blowing up like every two hours or whatever, we could really only bank on one day to kinda celebrate general stuff. And Christmas has, let's face it, the best promotional team." She made a face, crinkling her nose down into the pillow.

"Within Asgard, we'd simply hold a long, grand feast between the two furthest dates."

She looked at him for a second until she comprehended what he meant. "_Six weeks _of this stuff? I'd go crazy. Nobody should be around relatives or whoever nonstop that long." She drew her lips back to show her teeth, making a nauseated sound. "Dude, bad enough the stores try to pretend like that's what's going on. Hell, they try to start the party before Halloween is over."

A soft, slow snort. "When life is marked in millennia, what's the occasional feast year?"

"What, no decade parties?"

"Rarer, by some great margin."

"Can't say you guys don't rock out hard." She looked over her shoulder at the sound of the doorbell chiming to the tune of _Jingle Bells. _"God, Phil really went all in for this."

"You should see his kitchen apron. It's nauseating. It _tinkles._" He lapsed again into silence. Skye glanced back at him, her eyes squinting once in thought. Blue-eyed wonder that he'd even accepted the invitation. Then she bounced back up to see who else had made it to the shindig.

. . .

"May's running a touch behind." Phil wrangled snow boots and heavy winter coats into their appropriate destinations, finding it easier to work with Jemma's natural fussiness. "Should be here just before when I planned we'd sit down for dinner. If she doesn't, I can delay us a bit. Plenty of dip to go around. French Onion. If we end the night without breath that can kill an ox, I have failed as both Director and party host."

"Lovely," chirped Simmons, before a look of concern crossed her face to replace her slightly baffled one. "Something happen? Duty calling?"

"Her mom came into town. Same diff."

"She told you that? Astonishing." Simmons passed Leo Fitz's coat over to Coulson, patting at it instinctively. Mac's passed through her hands as well. Her fingers knotted against the collar of it without her realizing. The other two already passed her, heading towards the parlor, muttering with each other about some multiplayer _Halo_ map or another. She'd tuned it all out in the car. It was nice to see Fitz active with someone, anyone. Of _course_ it was. Good for Fitz! But the conversation meant little to her. She perked her face up with a cheerful smile. This would be the first time Mac would be meeting their 'other' unusual ally. He'd been briefed, but reality's results often differed from the plan.

From the parlor down the hall came a sudden, startled silence. And then the house warmed again somewhat. She smiled again, picturing it.

"I could tell by the tone in her voice. It's a very remarkable tone. You'll know it if you ever hear it. It means either someone's about to die slowly and in remarkable pain, or her mom is local. They have a warm relationship. Very caring. It's complicated." Phil shut the closet and turned to her. "Bobbi and Lance won't be joining us tonight, unfortunately. Said they were busy. I'll save a couple plates of food and take them back to base. They can have 'em for lunch tomorrow."

"Aw." Jemma's lips formed a moue as she tugged at the bottom hem of her jumper to smooth it, missing the amused snort in Coulson's voice. She readied to follow him to the kitchen with three fruit pies carefully boxed up in a stack, and an oversized batch of walnut-fudge brownies balanced carefully on top.

. . .

_ Elsewhere: Animal noises, the smells of musk and desperation, and the discussion of where everything had gone wrong in their relationship, before resuming again from the first. And then, much later, a grudging, argumentative meal in a Denny's with a tired-looking waitress that told her boss that if the mismatched pair broke out in a fight on her shift, she was going to quit right then and there. In the background played tinny Christmas music, mostly Trans-Siberian Orchestra to keep the late night drifters awake._

_. . ._

"I truly thought that _thing_ on the shelf was horrible, but what is this tacky bit of table decoration?" Loki picked up the white porcelain bowl with the jellied cranberry slices neatly arranged inside of it, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed at it. He put it back down with a grimace. "You're not going to tell me this is actually edible, are you?"

"I'm not," said Antoine Triplett, passing the rolls on his right so he could get at the hot stuffing action. Turkey and ham both fresh on the table, much to his delight. And the stuffing? Strictly necessary if turkey was involved. Nutty and full of sage and spices. His stomach offered a vocal opinion, and it was one he agreed with one hundred percent. He reached for a heroic spoonful of the stuff. "Cranberry sauce is a punishment from a thousand grandmas over a thousand years 'cause nobody ever ate their veggies at Christmas dinner."

"Agent Triplett, if you're about to diss my green bean casserole, I'm gonna demote you to windowlicker." Coulson took a roll and offered the warmed bowl to Loki on _his _right, who gamely, gingerly accepted it. "Look, scary can-shaped cranberry is tradition. It goes on the table."

"And can _stay _there." A long, black-clad arm snaked out to get the butter bell. "Most disgusting food-thing I've ever seen. Might I remind you I've seen more than a few planets and their cuisines? This is an educated opinion. I'll fight for it. Dirty fighting, even."

"Only kind you do. Anyway, you haven't even tasted it." Coulson watched Loki take the time to sneer at the jelly instead of him. "Okay, I haven't, either."

"All hypocrites this night at this table."

"Christmas spirit. Ho, ho, ho." This came drawling low from Mac, across from Fitz, down at the far end of the table. Skye sat between him and Loki, and across from her was Simmons. May held the other seat of honor across from Coulson. The perks of rank. It meant the dour-looking May was closest to the coveted gravy boat, and the least likely to use it. She did take a remarkably large piece of ham from the display in front of her, however, ignoring the impressed eyebrow she got from Skye. There was a look on her otherwise calm face that suggested that the secondary carving of the ham slice was going to be a metaphor for something more maternally related.

Triplett skipped the alleged casserole, looking Coulson dead in the eye as he passed the corning-ware dish and its deadly cargo on to the next victim. With a grin to show he wasn't actually serious, Phil pointed at his eyes with two fingers spread, then pointed them at Triplett.

"Who did up the turkey?" Skye pulled a few neatly carved pieces of perfectly moist white meat off the plate in front of her, ignoring the power play between her co-workers. "Never seen one carved up this good."

Loki rubbed two long fingers between his brows, annoyed by the implied attention. The action caught Skye's attention out of the corner of her eye. Coulson left Triplett alone and turned back to her, jerking a thumb at the erstwhile demigod. "Turns out he's good with a knife. Who knew?"

"Your medical examiner," Loki deadpanned. The room went silent, broken abruptly by the soft sound of Coulson laughing behind his hand.

"_Wow," _blurted Fitz. "You went there."

"I did." Loki glanced around the stunned table, then back at the still lightly-quivering Coulson. He decided to try and politely move the conversation along. If Coulson was far from enraged by what he'd deemed as only a pointed jest, their usual level of amicably hostile banter, the rest would ease off shortly. He recognized, if didn't quite understand, that their inability to take the past acts as an occasional dark joke was a mark of their collective fondness for their leader. "Don't your lot say some sort of meaningful nonsense before actually eating?"

"Does Asgard?" Simmons clasped her hands together, looking at him curiously.

"Yes, but such is not particularly germane here. If you abided by our tradition, we might be eating in the dead of night. If not January."

"Hot food. Stay hot. Eat food, eat." Skye tugged her plate closer to her. "Yay, food. Amen."

"And to that I say also, amen." Mac lifted his wine glass in a toast.

. . .

"Odd to see humans feast for so long," Loki observed as Skye half-lunged across the table for the bowl of mixed vegetables. "Admittedly, I've been told stories of prodigious gorging previous."

"What, like the Nathan's Fourth of July thing?" Skye watched him lift a single shoulder.

"It's a ho-holiday thing, sort of, yeah." Fitz stumbled only a little over the words. "More, ah, er..." He flapped his fingers, trying to indicate the opposite side of the table. He looked at Coulson, his mouth working for the word he needed. It was _right there_. He could visualize the map clearly. "Not Scottish. Not English. Opposite. Other."

"American," supplied Mac.

Fitz snapped his fingers, the rest of his words falling neatly into place. "Yes. American thing, I think. Back home it's not quite so much a production. Here, it's, it's like a fight. Eat as much as you can."

"Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners aren't over 'til you hate yourself, goes the legend." Coulson tore a chunk of dark meat off the leg he'd liberated, looking at it like a boxing partner.

"Like IHOP?" asked Loki, cocking his head towards the Director. But for Coulson, everyone looked puzzled by the apparent non-sequitur. Coulson, not taking his eyes off his food, gave a shrug of assent.

"Well," muttered Skye, mostly to herself as she speared a stray pea with her fork. "Some years you get to that point way before the food even gets on the table." She looked up as heads turned her way. "I'm just saying. You know. Not everyone has the best of times." She flushed as Simmons wrung her hands. "I'm not projecting or anything. Not all my holidays sucked."

. . .

_She's in the small bedroom they gave her and told her she could decorate however she liked, and she's crying. She's crying and the walls are still bare because she has no idea what she likes and she's hungry and full of hurt._

_ They're nice people downstairs. Everyone says so, and mostly she can believe it. They're a nice couple with a anch house and a cute little boy named Tobe that was three years younger than her and she was told they were going to be good friends. It was supposed to be all so great. The foster organization told her so. They loved their boy just so much in that home, and they'd love her, too. They'd said all that before, too._

_ They_ were_ good friends for about a week; building chaos with his Legos and pretending to be airplanes. He asked her to read to him and she did and then one day he gave her a little picture encyclopedia, the pages rustling under his still-pudgy grade-schooler's hands. "Read this one! It's super neat!"_

_ His voice is so excited that she dives in without reading ahead to see what she's gotten into, and it's an entry on the cuckoo bird. Her brow furrows because the bird is seriously weird and her tongue stumbles over the big Latin names._

_ "They leave their eggs in other bird's nests! Abandon them!" Tobe pokes her arm, hard. "Like you! You're a cuckoo!" And he laughs in his tinny little voice. "You don't belong here, but it's okay. I'll take care of you. Cuckoo! Cuckoo!"_

_ There's something about how that sounds that makes her uncomfortable. He's not an evil little boy, but he knows that he's smaller and younger and he's got all the power and that would mess with anyone. And when things start to break or things go missing, it's his innocent tears and pointed finger and the parents – HIS parents, not hers, not ever – who look at her with that sad, disappointed look in their eyes. Not at Tobe. Their good son, Tobe, who they love._

_ That Christmas morning ended the same as so many other mornings. When Tobe went upstairs to play with his brand new robot toy and broke it, she tried to lock herself in the bathroom to cry. She knew what was coming. They pulled her out anyway, upset darkening their eyes. Because they loved her, they said. Why are you trying to ruin the holidays for Tobe? She couldn't answer._

_ They wouldn't listen._

_ They didn't want to believe._

_ She was the cuckoo._

_ Downstairs, Tobe's family sang and drank and played with their son. She was left in her room – her room that's mostly bare and has a stack of new clothes on the bed that were her gifts. Gifts she helped pick out, and she supposes she's grateful to them. She has to be, right? They don't know what she'd like, and besides, she's been a bad girl. So the walls will stay bare because all she's really got is knotted up inside her head and mostly it hurts. Sometimes she thinks about what it would be like to have a real Daddy just show up and take her home. A real home. Someplace where she actually felt like she belonged. A nest._

_ From the door comes a single knock and then opens immediately after because Tobe knows she doesn't have the power to stop him. And he comes in with a big plate of food and a sad look on his face. "I brought you something to eat," and in his kind voice is the story he told his family – oh, let me take the cuckoo girl some food, oh Tobe, how are you so sweet? And then kisses from a grandma, an idea so weird she almost can't picture it. Her hunger is gone with the little boy that she thinks she hates as he leaves and the plate smells cold and empty. She doesn't want to touch it._

_ Across the hall is Tobe's room and his new gifts. Cool stuff. Fun stuff. Stuff that wasn't broken, because he didn't need it to be to re-establish his hold over the house yet._

_ Tobe got a laptop for Christmas. For school. It's bulky and just a touch out of date, but it's got all sorts of new network things inside. It's got wifi capability and an ethernet card already installed and unlike Tobe she's been reading about things like VPN and remote hosting._

_ She stares at the door that Tobe didn't close all the way, and she realizes all of a sudden that there's something she really wants after all. _

_ She snatches the roll off the plate and munches without tasting it. And she thinks. All she had to do was grab it and run. Be exactly what everyone expected of her. _

_ She'd just wind up back in another foster house, anyway._

_. . ._

"I mean, I basically got a laptop one year. Hand me down, but yeah. That was cool." Skye chewed down the forkful of peas, offering up a wry smile after the audible gulp. "That thing was wild for the time. I mean, the year was sort of okay to that point, but my grades went way up after. It was a _real _help to my studies. Changed my world, you know? Ooo, crap, am I smelling the pies getting warm?"

"They'll be ready soon. I like 'em toasty. Too cold for cold pies." Coulson wiped his fingers with a napkin, looking around the table for something. "That wine bottle empty?"

May nudged the empty with her finger, then its still-corked buddy. "Corkscrew down by you?"

Coulson started to shift in his chair, turning to peer down the hall into the kitchen. "Yeah, no. I'll get it."

"Don't bother, keep your seat," said Loki. "Pass it here."

May looked at him, shrugged, and sent the bottle up by way of Mac and Skye.

"You know," said Simmons, still wringing her hands against each other. "I _do _understand difficult holidays. It's... a different perspective that I have, yes." She glanced up and down at the table, meeting questioning eyes in turn. "We were done well and I've no doubt I was loved, which is its own kind of privilege, but..."

"When you're like us, you get a family that doesn't quite know how to relate to you, so it's all sort of distant sometimes," muttered Fitz, poking at his potatoes.

"Exactly!" Simmons bobbed her head. Across the table from her, Loki pulled off the wire netting atop the bottle with a soft mutter. He placed his palm across the mouth of the bottle and seemed to wait. "I _know _they adored me, but..." A little frown crossed her lips. "I made it hard sometimes to show it, I think. Just that little bit too different."

"Completely different levels of socialization. My Mum was like that. Gave me all the gifts she could think of, but it was something like..." Fitz flexed his hand, losing the word as it ran off into the distance, far away from him. He looked at Mac like a man drowning.

"Alienation," said Mac without looking up. Fitz gave him a series of thankful nods.

Muffled under the bone white hand, the bottle gave up a little _pop! _and a fizz. "Less cork my way," explained Loki, mostly under his breath. He dropped the cork onto a spare napkin and scanned the table.

"Precisely! Oh yes, please." Simmons lifted up her wine glass to accept a pour from what seemed to be a recent but well-reviewed zinfandel. She smiled again for Fitz. This was an understanding they'd always be able to share. For a brilliant, lonely second, it was like the old times were back.

At a questioning glance from Loki, Triplett lifted his own glass. "Thanks, man. I'll drink one down for us well-adjusted but boring suckers over here." He grinned under the short black mustache. "All I can really think of 'round this time of year is my aunt."

Simmons turned her head to look at him questioningly. "Special to you?"

"My auntie was special to _everybody._" He took a sip and closed his eyes, remembering. "Auntie Rachelle Rose. Every holiday she'd come 'round the family homes. And when I was little, it kinda embarrassed me at first." He looked sheepish. "You know how little kids get. Rachelle was a big woman. The kind you see down the street and you know some people are thinking stupid, cruel things. She was genuinely beautiful, though. I just didn't know at first 'cause I was a dumb kid. When I grew, I realized what she really was. A good soul. A full heart. A voice that could sing the ass off anyone. Completely beautiful."

He continued, swirling the wine around in his glass, not really paying attention to the table anymore, remembering instead the old smells of wood and anise and the potpourri perfumes that floated around the old memories. "Didn't matter what you believed. You heard my auntie sing, you'd believe some good and kind force pulled open her baby jaw and poured down liquid gold. She was something. You should have heard of her, but..." He shrugged. "Wrong generation, man. Hard to get into the New York Opera for anyone, anytime, but a black woman in the Sixties? You didn't even _talk_ about that. Everyone's loss." His voice drifted off, remembering her voice and the smells of rose and dry musk.

"She still around?" Skye put her elbows on the table, her fork dangling and half-forgotten. Triplett gave a slow shake of his head.

. . .

_It was an apartment fire. Some grand, horrible accident of sparked wiring and thick black smoke that took the lives of four people in the rent-controlled, squat brick structure. No one's fault, really. Nobody to blame. His folks sat him down to tell him the news and were impressed with how he took it. Another strong figure for the family album, right? His grandfather would have been so proud of him, they said. It was a good refrain in the music of his life, and he liked it. He liked living up to it._

_ So fall came, and his test scores were high, and he saw the guy from some agency he couldn't find the name of starting to snoop around, and things were looking damn good. Then the holidays crept close before Antoine realized, and he came out of his tunnel to help get things ready. Be there with his people, before life really got rolling and rolled him right outta town._

_ And relatives poured in and the hugs went around and he felt like he was missing something, couldn't spot something important. That wasn't right, though. All his field op training scores gave him full marks on perception. So he hung back till he got it right. Then he realized, felt it land with a ton of bricks. The hats. Oh, Rachelle wore them to church alright, but the really great ones? She wore those for family and those she made into family. The party started when the hat arrived._

_ One year, that great, purple wide-brim with a zebra trim – still tastefully shy of her shoulders. A hat that said 'I love you as you are and you'll love me, no compromise.' Another year, a beautiful brown cornucopia that his cocky pre-teen self thought lacked only a real turkey. Greens. Golds. One year, when a loss of some distant cousin meant a touch of sobriety, it was a rich umber number; hooded but with one curling, elegant feather and her deep lined eyes underneath full of warmth for her family. They were over the top, but they were also part of her art. _

_ Sometimes people looked at hats like the kind she wore and saw only the old cliches, without looking at what the women were trying to say with them. Rachelle was always full of things to say, and she said them kindly and with earnestness._

_ There would be no hats this year. No presence with a heart that filled a home to bursting. She would not be sashaying up to the side of the old piano, laying her hand on it with a sense of pride, and breaking out into God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen with the low, exquisitely trained tenor rising into a spiraling, glorious contralto. And then Angels We Have Heard on High._

_ Oh, she'd dip even lower in range for her personal favorite, Little Drummer Boy. She needed no backup from her small but loving audience, not ever, not when she rolled through the staccato triumphs of ba-rump-a-bum-bum. _

_ She'd go for an hour or more, accepting water with a little twist of lemon before doing any repeats. She got a hug from Antoine last before leaving, and the smell of her filled his nose as he remembered. Sweet roses and a little dry musk. The scent of another era; the true perfume of the season._

_ He excused himself from the just-arriving party, claiming he'd forgotten something upstairs. When he was safely away, he shut the door and found a sweater buried in his stack of set-aside things he'd long since outgrown, and he clutched it hard between his strong, brown fingers as if maybe that could reach back through and save her._

_ The worst of it – chilly knowledge from a dozen courses on survival and situational understanding struck him full in the face like a slap - the very worst of it was that Auntie Rachelle Rose might have chosen death over surviving. That thick, choking smoke that got into throats and too often stayed there. One way or another, all would have been lost. The gold turned to ash._

_ With the plinking sound of the old piano downstairs instead of a song, Antoine brought the old sweater up to his face and cried for a long, long time. When he finally pulled it away, he smelled it, deep in the fibers of the old garment._

_ Sweet roses and just a little dry musk._

_ The sweater went with him when the weird agency guy finally popped out and offered him the job of his lifetime._

_. . ._

"Got any recordings?"

"What?" Triplett drifted back, looked at Coulson where he sat with his fingers knotted together in front of him on the table.

"I love opera, classically trained singers, anything like that. I'd love to hear what she was like. You sell her talent well. With the look on your face, if nothing else."

He grinned. "Some old tapes. Some of her holiday stuff from a couple years. Think I still got a local thing she did. Not even sure I got anything they can play in anymore, you know? But I keep 'em safe anyway."

"Huh," said Coulson, seeming to let it go with only a little disappointment. He shook himself, thinking of something. "Memories. Hey, May?"

She looked up from her glass and met his eyes. "Yeah?"

"You remember Tunisia that one year? In Tozeur. Christmas with the Berbers?"

Almost unwillingly, a corner of her mouth quirked into a small but real smile. "I can't forget, Phil. Eighteen days with desert up my butt so far and so deep we could've built a sand castle on my crack."

Skye abruptly snorted wine up her nose so hard that she started coughing. That pretty much did it for the table entire; a flashpoint of awkward sound that capped the mental image intruding into every mind. Even Loki allowed a thin, bemused smile as the rising laughter made the candles flicker and dance.

May's smile widened as the chaos settled down. "I _also _remember-"

"God, I'm really starting to regret bringing this up." Coulson straightened, still hitching in breath.

"You trying to run off into the wilderness without me. Because _you _wanted to see if you could find some of the places where they filmed _Star Wars_."

"The stakeout was _boring_."

May turned to the flushed Skye, her voice mock-conspiratorial. "He went, you know. After the op was done, at least."

"I found Toshi Station! And it was on an island, not in the desert. And you _let me_."

She relented, lifting her wine glass at Phil in a salute. "I did. You did that squealing nerd puppy thing."

"I know that thing," muttered Loki with a smirk. It earned him a hot look from his left.

Triplett grinned across the table when the demigod glanced up. "He did it over some stuff my grandpa had. It was cute."

"You know what? I'm gonna go get some dessert ready."

. . .

"We just gonna stare at the pies, or are we going to eat them?" There was an absolutely intimidating pumpkin pie amidst the batch Simmons helped bring. Skye was sizing it up. Yeah, they were going to be sick by the end of it. Fitz already looked a little green, but he had the small dessert plate ready by his hand anyway.

Loki rested his chin in his palm, vaguely aghast. The expression on Coulson's face suggested to the rest of the table that he was trying badly to not laugh at Loki's blank horror. "You're all still planning to continue this madness?"

"Well, yeah, I mean, you're watching us." Simmons hid a giggle behind her hand as Skye kept backtalking the alien. "This shouldn't really be a surprise."

"_Gods_."

"Look, like twice tonight you've mentioned the big feasts of Asgard. Is this really that weird?"

"Those last for hours – days, sometimes, or weeks, or longer. You don't sit and chew mechanically on food the_ entire time_. Well, most don't. The lustre wears off after a while." He glanced around the table, automatically and subtly defensive. "It's typically an event that contains much else inside."

"So, let's hear about 'em if you're gonna bring 'em up." She reached for the knife, prepared to cut if nobody else was going to. From the corner of her view, she saw Coulson's hand reach in to take control of the cake spatula.

Triplett leaned back, crossing his arms while Loki seemed to collect himself in silence. Then, grudgingly, the demigod began to talk.

"Preparations begin early, commensurate to the occasion of course. The fabrics and the decorations made ready, the tables laid in the grand halls built for this purpose alone. The colors chosen, the hunters select and track their prey to be taken no sooner than necessary; bards practise lengthy ballads and the children taught those recitals necessary for a given event. When the festival days do come, ambassadors and supplicants will travel to participate, to kneel before the All-Father and say their careful words. They may come and go as the feast continues; a year-long event may see thousands of these travelers under the high banners and golden spires of the kingdom..."

. . .

_White gold and dwarven silver; the flickering banners of blue and the great shining statues of kings and heroes that rest now among the fire and the light of the stars. Poets come and spin words for its beauty, sharp and formidiable and ever undefeated. In each line of gleaming metal is the promise of honor and the songs of unforgettable legend. This is Asgard in the first months of the High and the Named, one of the grandest of the regular feasts. It will last for a full year's cycle and already the glittering streets and emerald fields beyond the palace throng with new visitors from countless places beyond the Nine Realms._

_ Within the palace, activity is unceasing no matter the hour. It is the All-Father's honor and duty to hold court in his place at the head of the great table, and there he will be for much of the year. Once a millenia comes this festival, and it is marked a good omen to see it when still young._

_ The kingdom's princes, Thor and Loki, are indeed that young. As the festival waxes and wanes in the months towards the day when Asgardian light shines brightest, they spend much of their shared time wandering the festival halls and giggling at passed-out bards and dozing travelers. Their mother, Queen Frigga, keeps them to their studies as best as she can from her place near her king, but in a festival year all bets, as even the people of this great realm know, are off. Festival year is prank year; dream year where responsibilites seem few and their coming adulthood is a problem for distant times._

_ In these times, the princes have no hint of the future's strife before them. They are fast friends, though Thor is already beginning to range wilder among the fields and has gained three inches of height on his forever more slender sibling. It is incomprehensible then to think that Loki might again catch up to him._

_ Loki frets often for his kin, for Thor is not taking the festival seriously; no, not even those few bits he ought. 'It is the High and the Named,' he tries to explain to the golden prince, again and again. 'You'll be called to Father and the hall entire to recite the Cant!' and he can't keep the nerves out of his still-high voice. A thousand names and more, to remember the deeds of their ancestors and to keep the light lit for the future. To see their Father shamed by Thor's inattention to his studies... Loki shudders a little and hurries to catch up with his brother, who has caught sight of totteringly huge Volstagg telling THAT story about the groomsman and the goat again._

_ And so the long days grow ever longer. One short night mighty Odin takes his royal due and leaves the hall to observe the stars for himself. The princes see him high atop his balcony where he pretends to not see them at their games; instead he toys with the beaks of his twin ravens with a private smile. And again, Loki tests his brother's memory and finds despair. Though he knows by heart all the thousand names and the chants beside, he cannot force them into Thor's mind. The joy of the festival pales now for him; he can see only the disaster that will come, and come soon._

_ Too quickly that longest day comes, and at the fall of night the feast hall throngs twice as thick as it's ever been. Jostling and singing and for this night, the largest and most succulent of the vilde boars are made ready for the vast tables. The rich, redolent scent of the meat fills the air and Loki feels sick under its assault. Thor has been permitted already to drink of the softer ales, a sign he will soon be treated as an adult and given full permit to learn the warrior's ways. As he has dreamed. And already, his face burns red and easy under his bright blond hair. The disaster Loki has feared is nigh._

_ It comes. Odin, sober and strong under the fire light rises to his feet. "The long day draws closed. Now we will tread towards the long night, and again, the cycle repeats. We cannot forget. We are honor incarnate. We are Asgard. And we will remember the names of our Elders and our Sages."_

_ Loki looks at the high table in tense horror, though his face is outwardly calm. He's learned that much already. His mother meets his eyes and smiles, unworried. Oh, mother! he thinks desperately._

_ Odin turns to the table where the princes sit, nodding once in curt demand. "Come," he says, through a fog that feels like a century. And then the final shock. "Loki. Recite for us."_

_ The world spins wild and full of sparking stars. Frigga's smile widens further, her hands clasped together for him. As he rises numbly to his feet, all the names he thought he knew so well fall through his feet and are seemingly lost. But, he remembers, he must be the clever one._

_ He thinks to pause for an inhale of breath, and to take long, meticulous steps to his place before the throng. As he walks, control and dignity always his friend, they come back easily to his lips. And he opens his mouth to fill the hall with his high and clear child's voice, and for a long while are only the names; that cant he's practiced for so long it infests even dreams._

_ He is so tense that he cannot even see by the end, but he hears the tankards thump heavy against the tables in approval when he is done. When his eyes clear he first sees her – his mother – beaming proudly and without any doubt in the lines of her face. But more glorious is what he sees next. His eyes meet Odin's piercing one, and the man, ever so massive in stature to him and forever distant, nods his head once in brief approval. It is like lightning through him, that craved rarity of acceptance._

_ Loki tastes for the first time the power of Voice and Word. It is one moment he will keep forever, locked close inside._

_. . ._

Loki fiddled with his glass. "As you see, they're quite dull after the first, oh, week. Even teasing the passed-out drunks grows old after a time." He tossed off the final dosh of liquid in the glass and set it neatly down. His face kept itself unreadable, though he caught Coulson watching him close to try and read between the lines.

On the other side of Skye, Mac hid a full, distressed burp behind his hand.

"And on that note," said Coulson under an arched eyebrow. "I'll start clearing things up a bit." He put a hand up as the clatter began around the room. "Do me a favor. I've got a plan. Think I wouldn't create this big a mess without a way to fix it? Let me get in there. When I call you, just bring in what you can carry. I'll organize from there." He glanced down to watch Loki add the last dregs of a bottle to his glass. "Skye, bring me your load first."

. . .

She followed him close behind, an armful of half-filled bowls of bread and a jittering stack of dishes. "You sure you got this, Phil?"

"Yup. Hey." He spun to help balance the plates in her hand, the thick tinsel on his kitchen apron tinkling against a remarkably hideous reindeer.

"Holy wow, he wasn't kidding, that thing is fugly," she blurted as she took the sight of the sucker in. She looked down at herself. "I should talk."

"Kitsch only comes once a year."

"Thank God, right?" She grinned, toppling the less-fragile things down to the counter where he indicated.

"And best in the presence of family."

That made her pause, her palms now pressed together. "Is that what we are? I mean. We're your team. Also, technically, your employees."

He stacked dishes by size, scraping the few bones and other rubbish into one of a few empty bins. "Can you believe a place this size doesn't have a dishwasher? Unreal." He glanced over his shoulder. "You feel like you actually found a place to belong?"

She took that in, her face feeling hot and befuddled. "...Yeah. I mean, yeah."

"That's a home, Skye. For anyone that wants it, they got it. No matter where they started from. No matter what happens. We do what we can to look out for each other here. No more getting passed around or forgotten or we stop trying to understand, alright?"

Skye bit her lip and didn't say anything to that. She remembered the acrid, cold smells of a dozen adoption offices and a dozen foster homes. A smell that, yes, finally stopped chasing her.

"Do me a favor and send in Triplett when you go out," he said, after she hugged him.

. . .

"Bring in those tapes on Monday."

"Sir?"

Coulson indicated a clean spot for the glasses Triplett managed to juggle into the kitchen. "Your aunt's tapes. We can filter 'em in through the audio lab. They can move 'em onto the new stuff, clean them up for you without losing any fidelity. Surprised you never did it at the Hub. I knew a guy that was stripping old UHF shows onto digital."

"Yeah, it never crossed my mind. Misuse of resources and everything."

"Not a misuse, making it Director's orders if anyone gives you crap. I'll want copies." He glanced up, taking in Triplett's questioning stare. "We don't ever forget who we do this job for. We don't forget those things we've lost, alright? That's _everything_. We lose why we do what we do, and S.H.I.E.L.D., as I believe it should be, will die."

Triplett nodded his head, taking that in. "Thanks, sir."

"Merry Christmas. Send in the next vic."

. . .

Loki dangled his empty wine glass between two long white fingers, seated at the tiny kitchenette table in the corner. The house beyond the still-warm kitchen was quiet as all the other guests slipped off into the night and its gently drifting snow. "And have you played good Father Christmas to your heart's due content? All your little soldiers in a row and gifts thus unwrapped?"

"I did what I could. It's not much. Mostly I can just try for one night's good company."

Loki smirked, not unkindly. "And what did _you _want from this misplaced little holiday?"

Coulson turned to grimace at him, tugging at the pink and white ties of his apron. "Seriously? I want a frickin' dishwasher."

The demigod glanced at the organized but still unholy mess, then back to Coulson's dour, tired expression. "Magic is not what that ridiculous little, what was it... mouse in a blue hat attempted to make of it."

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice. I'm_ really_ hoping it actually is." He leaned back against the sink. "Got a whole wine bottle still untouched."

"_Bribery. _It infests the highest levels of your organization. A _cancre _debilitating your ranks. Truly, I despair for your future," intoned Loki, his eyes half-lidded in dry amusement. He lifted a hand to give a gesture of sharp command. The plates began to rattle and the tap came alive, steaming instantly into hot mist above the sink. "Not another zinfandel? Yon party cleared out three of those."

"A nice merlot that I did in fact save for the clean-up crew."

He waggled the glass in his other hand again. "Get pouring, and the bottle will be done by the time I can soak the pots."

"Deal. But I'm warning you, the potatoes are stuck on the pot pretty good."

Two glasses filled and then filled again, Coulson settled across the table from him. "All my long years in Asgard and I never had to help with kitchenry there," Loki muttered.

"Well, that's what happens when you fudge up being a prince, what, a half dozen times or so? 'Round here, that means scrub chores."

"I shudder to learn what earns the cleansing of moldy bathroom tile and the flensing of the toilet bowl."

"High crimes. Nobody wants to be that guy."

Loki lifted a single eyebrow in wry assent before in time turning serious again. "I ask again, since you dodged me earlier and left me to be hounded by the stare of that pitiful Elf. Why invite me to this nauseatingly charming event?"

"Had anywhere else to be?"

"No," said Loki, and then grimaced over his glass at Coulson, spying the easy trap that had been set for him. "You know this damnably well; I'm not some wild pet to be tamed and made a friend. We've found some respect, don't forget and make more of it than that. You never know when I'll bite again, and you know quite the shape and length of my teeth."

"Crazy question, why keep setting yourself up like that? That whole big deal with those books and making your own fate, why act like you could screw it up anytime?"

Loki reached for the tall bottle instead of answering, topping himself off.

"Okay, so your track record isn't the best..."

"Enough," said Loki, without the usual weight of snapping rancor. He reached across the table for Coulson's glass to top that one off as well. "Your festival of familial piety is heavy with import. I'm not amongst your lost lambs, don't count me there."

"I was going for the black sheep motif, actually. We collect a few of those around here, especially lately. I think it makes a better group. Those know what it's like to not be accepted with open arms, so when someone's in, they're _in_. And God help the wolf against _that _tight herd."

Loki's gaze was even and glittering, his emotions left carefully hid. "I recall hearing a notion that you were an only child, not some forgotten half-loved imp."

"Makes for its own kind of isolation. I always wondered what it was like to have someone else to grow up with."

"Not that wondrous, to be brutally honest."

"Well, your perspective is a little screwy. And you sometimes let slip just enough that it wasn't always like that. So I'll keep my envy, thanks." Coulson tipped his glass towards Loki in a salute.

"It's not that. It's the breaking apart that gives the greatest of pa- why am I even discussing this with you?" With his attention broken somewhat, the remaining forks and spoons clattered abruptly within the confines of the sink. He bit off his snarls, refocused himself, and gently clinking order resumed. "Too much wine. It grants advantages on the field."

"This isn't a battle, Loki."

"_Everything _is battle." A flutter of his hand. "Regardless. I'm tired. Try your assault another time. I'll give better combat then."

"It's not an assault, either. You're being deliberately intractable."

Loki sighed. "It's a well-learned skill." He set his glass down, glancing at the bit of wine left in it with a fleeting expression that suggested betrayal.

"Loki."

"Another time, Coulson. You're not my Jacob Marley, though you are, I suppose, my stuck ghost after all." Loki tugged his suit jacket into smoother arrangement and rose to his feet, no hint of sway in his posture. "You've an ally. Take that much till we meet again." He glanced at the sink to note the drying pots. "And a markedly cleaner kitchen besides. I'll make my departure."

Phil's face crinkled, catching up to one thing that tweaked him. "You don't really know _Fantasia _but you know _A Christmas Carol?_"

"I'll give you a hint – if it's firstly a book, odds go up I've encountered it."

"Okay, point." He turned to catch Loki before he left the room. "Was still a good party."

Loki paused just long enough to look down at him. "Yes. I suppose it was." He paused again after a few steps, framed neatly in the doorway. "Thank you. For the invitation."

"Want to take the shelf elf as a gift?"

"_Gods, _no. An act of war, I'd count it."

"I'll throw in a lighter."

To Coulson's surprise, easy and untroubled laughter filtered in the dark demigod's wake as he left. The play was the thing. He would make no points remarking on the stage direction.

. . .

Coulson sat for a while in a clean and silent kitchen with still a portion of the wine bottle as company, thinking of Christmas plays and of Thanksgiving gatherings in that childhood past. Kids in tacky towels and balking rented donkeys that some wise guy thought would be a great idea; recreations of Scrooge with a plasticky Santa beard doubling as the old miser's grey mane and nobody remembered all their lines. The first awkward introductions to latkes and challah and dreidels and figuring out it was all pretty good. These events fell inevitably to chaos, but it didn't matter. Everyone put their heart into it, and that was what mattered.

He smiled into his wine glass, thinking of his team. His friends. A chosen family, after all. He knew what he fought for. Second chances all around. He himself had been given another life. Forced to it, yes. But he could make the best out of it, do what he could with it to help others and Coulson was sure he'd made a good start. The lost ones were finding a place, whether they would admit to it or not.

Yes, he could do that much.

He left the last empty wine bottle behind, and shut down all the lights in the borrowed home with a little smile.

. . .

_The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune ~ A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens._

_Nov 30th, 2014. Happy Holidays._


End file.
